While I didn’t actually see the tails of the whales yesterday, I did see the whales they were attached to. I also saw plenty of dolphin tail!

Remember last year when I kayaked with the whales? I caught a crab with my GoPro, too. The humpbacks are back as are the Atlantic white sided dolphins, too. They were gone when I went out with my kayak last year. They were here in full force this year! They are stunningly amazing creatures. I was so happy to get out with them. I really hope we get some more calm days soon so that DW can join me next time.

Yep. I was that close. They swam right under my kayak. Next time I’ll try to get some underwater shots of them, too.

Here’s the video montage of my whole trip. That’s the DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) that I talk to. There was concern that the humpbacks may have been tangled in something because they hadn’t shown their fluke as in previous years. The DFO was kind enough to explain it to me the reason why…

Day 4 of 7 days. 7 Black and White Photos of your life. No people or explanation.
Thanks A Momma’s View for nominating me for this challenge!

The whales are back – two humpbacks. The eagles number in the several dozens. As do the Atlantic White Sided Dolphins (not the Miami kind). The seals are always here. The Atlantic Saury (aka billfish or skipjack) are in by hundreds of thousands and that’s what all the rest of higher food chain creatures are after. They are so amazing to watch. If you’ve been following my blog for more than a year you will remember my adventures with them from last year. One of these years they will accept me as one of their own. If you’re looking for some incredible photos of all this, check out the amature photographer’s FB page! You’ll be amazed!

I don’t know if your weather is acting all wonky, too, but ours is a bit off its rocker. The temps are reaching 20-22 degrees (C) (70-74F). Once upon a time snow suits were worn under Halloween costumes. I’m really hoping this isn’t the calm before the storm. I’m really hoping that winter isn’t going to be as long and cold as summer was long and hot. This week has been the ideal perfect temperature. Sunny. A little breeze. No sign of hurt-your-face-cold. No sign of that four letter bad word s-n-o-w. Though it’s not bad to me, I like s-n-o-w.

1. What’s static electricity and how does it make a balloon stick to the wall?

Static electricity is a great way to study electricity without getting hurt. Mostly. It’s hilarious to watch kids go down a plastic slide and get to the bottom and see their hair standing on end. Or shock each other after jumping on the trampoline in sock feet. It’s even worse in the winter when the air is dryer. Speaking of dryer, we laundry doers have a great time battling static. All those dry clothes rubbing together can make a lightning bolt of it. The easiest way to think of it is as shell. On the shell are electrons and different elements have a different number of electrons. When two object rub against each other, like your butt going down the slide, some electron swapping occurrs. The atoms that have space on their shell take electrons from the other surface that doesn’t have room for more. The thug surface that stole electrons is not negatively charged while the victimized surface that lost electrons is positively charged (it now has more protons than electrons). Thank to your butt you are negatively charged, too, no matter how optomistic you are. Since like charges repel each other (just like magnets) your negatively charged hair stands on end as each strand repels all the others. Mine doesn’t do that. Then you go and touch something that is grounded and you release your negativity and are shocked to feel it happen. What you are feeling is all the electrons moving to the neutrally charged surface. It can be upwards of 25,000 volts! So when you rub a balloon on your head, electrons transfer from your hair to the balloon. Now the balloon is negatively charged and those electrons are attracted to the protons on the wall and the balloon sticks.

2. Has anyone ever died in space?

There have been four space vehicular accidents since 1967 that has killed four cosmonauts (Russian astronauts) and 14 astronauts. The first cosmonaut actually died when his space capsule hit the ground at roughly 150 mph when the capsule’s parachute failed to open upon reentry. On June 30, 1971 3 cosmonauts died after detatching from the space station, Salyut 1. A pressure valve accidently opened and they suffocated. Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev, and Vladislav Volkov are the only three to have ever died in space (above 62 miles). In January of 1986 seven astronauts died when the Challenger space shuttle exploded 73 seconds after lift-off. A faulty O-ring caused a fuel leakage and the demise of a great crew, among them, teacher Christa McAuliffe. In 2003 seven more astronauts died upon reentry when damage to teh thermal protection system caused structural damage and the shuttle broke apart over Texas and Louisanna. Many more have given their lives during training and testing. Without any of them we would not be where are today as we explore the cosmos.

3. How do you build metal? With wood or something?

Poor Bang is slightly confused on the production of metal. No wood goes into the making of any metal. Copper was first discovered around 9000 BC. Since then many alloys (metal mixtures like tin and copper to make bronze) have been created. To make metal you first need to mine it. Vast amounts of rock and dirt need to be excavated to collect the ore (raw metal, like bread is raw toast). Excavating is relatively the same for all metals. Refining and producing specific metals requires different processes. To make copper an added chemical binds to the copper and is then submerged in water. Air is pumped in from the bottom and the coated copper clings to the bubbles and rises to the surface. Then it’s put in a smelter and gets melted at 2,000 degrees. Not your normal oven temperature. Silica is added and any iron in the ore mixes with it and rises to the surface and is skimmed off, leaving the copper at the bottom. Simply put, this copper mixture is only 95% pure, still impure enough to leave deformities. An electric current is run through it copper is deposited on cathodes while the impurities (gold, silver, selenium, and tellurium) form a slime on the bottom and are process separately to be recovered. This is very simplified. To learn more visit your friendly, local blacksmith. Thanks to 12,000 years of science we have metal for everything.

4. Why do we have seasons?

So we don’t have too much summer or too much winter.

Just kidding. You didn’t believe me, did you?

This answer is easy compared to making metal. The Earth is tilted at a 23.5 degree angle. So instead of spinning perfectly upright it spins more like this thing…

But it’s not the spin of the Earth that gives us the seasons. That rotation gives us night and day. The tilt of the axis changes the angle of the sun’s rays as the Earth travels through its orbit around the sun. When the northern axis points toward the sun, the northern hemisphere experiences baseball, beach days, and long hot, days. When the southern end points to the sun the north gets football, skiing, and long, cold nights. The southern hemisphere gets the exact opposite. I still can’t comprehend Christmas being in the summer time. Y’all down there are weird. I’m surprised you haven’t fallen off the Earth yet, being upside down all the time.

She’s the crazy glue holding us all together. She’s the Jedi using the force to bend wills with her mind. She’s got the one ring to rule us all. If mama ain’t happy, ain’t no one happy. But all we really need to know is “because she said so, that why.”

As always, feel free to steal these questions to ask your own kids (no matter how old they are). Just be sure to tag me so I can read their answers.

Bang: You’re a senior. 40, 41, 42, year olds are seniors.
Me: If I’m a senior then what is Nanny? (DW’s mom)
Bang: Meh… she’s just an old woman.

Crash was in primary when he learned he wouldn’t live forever. He took it pretty rough and for the next few months he’d get worried about it. It was during that phase that the Sandy Hook shootings occurred. He knew nothing about it, nor did we tell him.

Two years later, in 2013, we were watching the Boston Marathon. We had friends there and me being an “avid” runner, we were interested. Then everything changed. Crash knew people had been hurt, but watching it on TV, for him it wasn’t exactly real. It was very real and we didn’t tell him the final outcome.

We’ve read Jerry Spinelli’s Maniac Magee so he’s heard of racism. He’s never witnessed it. He’s never heard of it in the real world. In his world every is treated equally no matter where they’re from or what color their skin might be or what gender they are.

He knows President Tweetsalot is in office to the south of us. He knows DW and I don’t like him. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know all controversy the President has caused.

He’s a pre-teen now. He’s told us so himself. How much longer can we keep this big, bad world from him? Should we even be keeping it from him in the first place? How much is too much?

I wrote once that I wanted to keep my kids from being a-holes so that when they grew up they could be respectful, contributing citizens of wherever they live.

But right now? Right now they’re a-holes. Especially, to each other. I thought it was just a phase. I thought it would pass. It’s been 10 and 6 years. It hasn’t passed.

1. He used to LOVE bananas.

Now they’re too “mushy” and won’t touch them. Even the unripe, green bananas are too mushy for him now. He liked them last week. Today he hates them. There were two fruits he would eat, the other being apples. If they weren’t mushy. He likes mushy food. He practically lives off mashed potatoes. He’s like that with other foods, too. He will eat carrots unless you tell him there’s carrots in his meal. The only meat he’ll eat that’s not mashed into mashed potatoes is ham and haddock. Simply put, he’s a typical picky eater. The silver lining here is that we no longer have a fruit fly farm.

2. His toast was cut into too many triangles.

Now he won’t touch it. He wanted it cut into two triangles, diagonally. I forgot to ask and I cut into four triangles. I might as well have spread bananas across it. I remember a time when my uncle was trying to prepare a hotdog for this same child. Naturally, he got it wrong the first time. After he was told by said 4 year old child what to do he tried to rectify the situation. It still wasn’t right. Why? Because you can never please an asshole child. It’s not that the bar is set too high. It’s that there is no f***ing bar.

3. He killed his brother just watch him die.

They like to play Lego Star Wars for the Wii. First off, it’s Star Wars! Second off, it’s Lego! It’s a great work together kind of game. Therefore as long as they’re playing nice I don’t mind giving them some extra screen time. The problem is, they often don’t play nice. Bang gets stuck and his big brother won’t help. Instead, he starts shooting his blaster at him. Or, even better, goes all Dark Side and kills him with a light saber. The sole reason? Just to watch his little brother’s character explode into tiny Lego pieces, killed him on purpose like he’s Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues.

4. He’s not being nice to his brother’s stuffie.

Crash loves his stuffies. He has a queen size bed (hand me down) and what space his little-no-so-little body doesn’t use is taken up by stuffies. He treats them as if they were real animals. It’s the Velveteen Rabbit all over again, minus the scarlet fever. It’s good to see him so loving and caring and gentle. I just wish he’d treat his brother similarly. His brother, on the other hand, fully understands the stuffies aren’t real. They can’t be hurt. It doesn’t matter how hard or often you throw them against the wall they won’t talk. It doesn’t matter how many times you jump on their head, they just won’t cry. But you know… it’s all in the name of pissing off your brother for killing you on purpose.

5. He didn’t share the last of the ice cream.

Imagine having three scoops of ice cream left. I know it’s hard to picture, but just try. Just a little bit left that didn’t get eaten. Perhaps it was saved for later, like after the kids go to bed, but then you fell asleep with the kids and didn’t get to eat it. Then, after supper the oldest child finds it while looking for dessert because God forbid he not get dessert. Then he proceeds to clean out the tub and lick it clean. Meanwhile, his little brother gets nothing. I made sure little brother got extra cookies to make big brother jealous, too. Unfortunately, this isn’t a phase, though we’re trying our hardest to teach them to do good.

6. He doesn’t hold the door open.

He lets it slam on the person behind him. Could be me, his mother, his little brother. He gets through the door and he doesn’t let it hit him on the ass on his way out. This goes for both little heathens. Even getting into the truck, they absolutely refuse to let each other in “their side” unless strictly requested. Fortunately, this is only at home and in the truck. But still…

7. I mopped the floor last night.

This morning they are eating pancakes on the living room floor. Sticky, syrupy pancakes.

“That’s okay. I love to be your maid”~No Parent Ever

They’re tracking muddy shoes across a freshly vacuumed floor.

They’re flinging toothpaste on a freshly cleaned bathroom mirror

They’re jumping on a freshly made bed

They peed on the toilet that I just finished cleaning pee off

They put a dirty dish in a sink that I just emptied by washing and drying all the dirty dishes that were in it.

They spilled strawberry jam on a counter I scrubbed clean 30 seconds ago

They dumped the crayon bucket to find peach on a kitchen table I just cleared off for supper

No doubt, whatever it was that was just cleaned will be wrecked in 30 seconds or less or the next one’s free.

8. He’s aiming a Nerf gun at his brother.

While I enjoy a good Nerf gun fight, they can’t be had in our house for a couple reasons. When we start a fight it’s all fun and games. Then someone runs out of darts and has to call a timeout. During the timeout someone gets tired of waiting starts shooting. The victim then proceeds to go batshit crazy. The second scenario is that the game ends except someone doesn’t know it ended and continues firing. Like the USS Shenandoah that continued to chase down and sink Union ships six months after the Confederacy collapsed. Which brings us to the second reason. The youngest hates to have darts shot at him. Whether he was shot at close range, had his eye shot out, or took one to the face, or all of the above, he hates to even have a Nerf gun pointed at him. Loaded or not. Johnny could easily have sung, I shot my brother just to hear him scream”.

9. I told him not to touch the cart.

Then, he touched the cart. It’s a stupid rule. Both Crash and I know it’s a stupid rule. Neither one us are allowed to touch the shopping cart. That’s Bang’s job. He has passed up a trip to the bookstore and the promise of picking out books to go grocery shopping just so he can push the cart. He does not want help with it, either. So the rule is, don’t touch the cart. I will not subject you to hearing the hissy fit that occurrs when the cart is touched.

10. He farted.

In the truck. At the table. In the living room. While brushing his teeth. In his brother’s room. The stench from it is enough to peel the paint off the walls. It’s all fun and games and hilarious when he does it. Guess what ensues when someone else does it? All Hell? Yeah, it breaks loose. Oh sure, farts are hilarious, but only when they’re your own. We easily know who dropped a destroyer because the other will lose his shit.

*Disclaimer: They are not like this all the time. I picked out specific instances that they did jerk things. Hopefully, to provide humor and solace to those have kids who do asshole things, too. We love our two assholes very dearly.

This is the origin of the “Questions I Asked My Kids” series that appears here every Thursday. Or most Thursdays. This is the 52nd episode, the one year episode. I have asked 10 questions every Thursday for an entire year. 520 questions. Except the pilot episode had 23. Of course, sometimes questions were repeated just to see if they would give the same answer.

In honor of those first 23 questions, I thought I’d revisit them. It took me more than two years to ask a year’s worth of questions. The pilot first appeared in June of 2015. Crash was just 8 and Bang 4. You can read Bang’s answers here and Crash’s are here. As always, feel free to steal these questions to ask your own kids (no matter how old they are). Just be sure to tag me so I can read their answers.

1. What is something Dad always says to you?
Crash: No
Bang: Get ready for bed!

2. What makes Dad happy?
Crash: When the Orioles win or Splatoon 2
Bang: When I do chores

3. What makes Dad sad?
Crash: When the Orioles lose or my brother and I aren’t good listeners.
Bang: When you couldn’t get the chocolate sugar cookies because mom made you put them back (I got vanilla ones instead)

4. How does Dad make you laugh?
Crash: By saying “I’m Bri’ish. I drive on the other side of the road” in a British accent.
Bang: By stomping and clapping when you make fun of my brother

5. What was Dad like as a child?
Crash: You had hair for one and you liked going outside and playing baseball
Bang: You behaved good but were a little bit bad and liked to run around and scream

6. How old is Dad?
Crash: 40
Bang: 41

7. How tall is Dad?
Crash: 5’4 or 5’9 or 5′ something
Bang: 21 feet

8. What is Dad’s favorite thing to do?
Crash: Go outside or watch the Orioles
Bang: Teach in gym

9. What does Dad do when you’re not here?
Crash: Clean and play Splatoon 2
Bang: Wash dishes, watch TV, play Splatoon and crawl around on the floor

10. If Dad becomes famous what will it be for?
Crash: Teaching, I guess
Bang: Being in a book that says dad dad dad dad dad dad

11. What is Dad really good at?
Crash: Aiming snowballs like that time I was running away from you and you hit me in the back of the head.
Bang: Cleaning the house and teaching gym

12. What is Dad not very good at?
Crash: You’re not very good at surviving in Splatoon 2 and remembering stuff
Bang: Playing baseball on the Nintendo Switch. When we play I always beat you

13. What is Dad’s job?
Crash: Teaching but it’s not your official job. You don’t have an official job, you’re just a substitute.
Bang: Teaching gym

14. What makes you proud of Dad?
Crash: That you love me and pack my lunch and awesome super amazing best dad ever
Bang: Making my bed

16. What do you and Dad do together?
Crash: We used to play Minecraft together but you don’t play any more. Now we build lego, go ice skating
Bang: We play Uno, we skate together

17. How are you and Dad the same?
Crash: Our big caterpillar eyebrows!
Bang: We love pop

18. If your Dad was a cartoon character who would he be?
Crash: Snow white
Bang: Harry Potter

19. How are you and Dad different?
Crash: I have hair and you don’t. I play Minecraft, you don’t. You wear glasses, we read different books
Bang: I can’t drink beer but you can (but I don’t, I prefer wine)

I can only imagine how much my parents learned about parenthood after I was born. I was colicy. I hated coloring. I painted newspaper to the floor. I joined the wrestling team. While I had a steep learning curve it was mostly because I was the first born. My brother, however, brought whole new challenges to the table. In the beginning, the only electronics we had in the house was an Atari. No tablets. No cell phones. No computers unless you count the Commodor 64. Now we have all that and social media and everyone is “connected” every which to Sunday.

My kids are not me

Oh hell… Who am I kidding. They’re more like me than I care to admit. From “I had it a minute ago, I don’t know where it is now.” To all the broken things. They could tear the hinges off of Hades if only I hadn’t torn them off when I was their age. However, they are more headstrong than I remember myself being. I was a go-with-the-flow kind of kid. These two are not. They know what they want and they are not afraid to ask for it. Or ask Nanny for it. They’re also not afraid to argue their point of view. They haven’t figured out this household isn’t a democracy.

Two kids isn’t easier than one

Silly me. So nieve when I was “young”. One kid was easy. Easy to feed. Easy to entertain. Easy to transport. Easy to put to bed. When we added a second, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. When the second was an infant we were so tired to call us zombies would have been a compliment compared to how we felt. Yet no matter how tired we were, we still had our first born to care for. One can stay awake for just so many games of UNO on such little sleep. Now that they’re old, the ideal would be for them to entertain and play with each other. Naturally, we’re not there. Everything is a competition. Everything is a distraction. They live to annoy the shit out of each other. At breakfast time. At suppertime. At bedtime.

The common enemy

It’s us versus them. Having two kids has brought us closer together. “You’re momma told ya not to do that and you went and did it anyway. Don’t come crying to me about it.” It works in reverse, too. Only on rare occassions when we feel the other just needs to take their chill pill will we override the consequences. If they ever realized they could play us against each other, our world would crumble like last Christmas’s gingerbread house.

Not all things are teachable

I’m a teacher. I teach things. All kinds of things. I teach kids to multiply double digits numbers. I teach kids long division. I teach kids to speak with respect to others and to take pride in their work. Do you think I can teach my kids to pick up their toys when they’re done? Do you think I can teach my kids to pee IN the toilet instead of ON it? Do you think I can teach them that life is so much better when they’re playing together rather than fighting together. I just can’t do it.

For the most part, I wasn’t an instigator growing up. My brother was my brother and it usually wasn’t my intent to piss him off. Usually. My two thrive on instigating fights and arguments with each other. Just tonight at bedtime, the youngest was laughing his head off at his brother who was red-in-the-face angry at whatever it was his little brother was doing or saying. We’re not even sure. All we knew was that it was bedtime and they needed to get there before we went batshit crazy like big brother was.

Pride comes in small doses

It could be a random “I love you” or “I like your face” or “thank you for loving me”. It could be an assignment they’re proud of completing in school. It could be at hit they made, a fly ball they caught, a goal they scored. It could be a first word or a first step or reading their first book. Perhaps it was a first solo song or finally getting rid of the training wheels. It could be a new picture for the fridge or special card they made at school.

Wherever it comes from it reaches deep and grabs your heartstrings. When the days end and you feel their little bodies softly slip into slumber, you can’t help but feel the love. They in your loving embrace and you in their warmth and innocence. You kept them alive for yet another day and in that success you can be proud.

A little hike today. This was before the red hatter jumped in the water…

16 days until Halloween. We’ll have a skeleton and an alien knocking on doors. The skeleton’s Halloweens are limited. He’s 10 now. He might have 2 more. However, there is no clear cut off age for trick-or-treaters.

11 weeks left of this year.
10 weeks until Christmas. 10 Sundays left.
15 days into October and we have yet to turn the heat on. We’re doing well. I have a hunch it won’t be long until we start hearing those little clicks of warmth coming from those baseboard heaters. The mornings have been 5 degrees (41) and while the days have been nice, we’re no longer reaching 20 (70). Like the Starks always say, “Winter is coming”. Well, duh. We’re in the North.

This Girl’s Dad
We parents have it tough. Kids can have it tougher, especially when there are consequences. This Girl’s Dad carefully weighs the “punishments” his daughter will face in school and then handles like a caring father would…

WonderoakJess is the mom of four and this poignant post she eloquently discusses “kid shaming”. Having kids is a decision, your decision. Not your neighbors. Not that crotchety old lady behind you in the checkout line. Not that couple next to you at the restaurant. Don’t apologize. These kids are the future…

Skinny and Single
This isn’t a post about a stupid, ugly kid. Okay, yes it. But, it’s also about how to raise them so they don’t get beat up. How to raise them into perfect 10s.

The Return of the Modern Philosopher
Ever wanted to have some deep thoughts with Satan? Austin did. Or at least he tried. He tried to put Hell’s Warden out of a job. Then the Prince of Darkness delivered…

Ah Dad
Dubai is long way away from South Africa. It’s also more humid. Especially since South Africa is moving from winter to spring while Dubai is moving from Summer to fall. I’m pretty sure one air conditioner just saved his life…

I’ve had a guitar for 14 years. Guess how many complete songs I can play…

If you guessed one, your guess is too high. I can read basic music thanks to my years of playing trumpet in elementary and some middle school. I like the guitar because of it’s portability. I had a violin for a bit, too. I didn’t learn anything that because, well, it sucked. I know it’s the poor craftsman who blames his tools, but a music friend of my parents played it and said it wasn’t worth the wood it was built. Lately, though, I’ve come to really enjoy listening to the piano. I was substituting in a music class yesterday and girl played the chorus of Believer by Imagine Dragons and it was really neat to hear. That got me hooked so I found a YouTuber, a 14 year old named Sarah who played an incredible version of it. Even my boys loved it.

I can play the piano. With one hand behind my back (because I don’t use it anyway). I play all the classics… Mary had a Little Lamb, Frere Jacques, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

1. What’s a moonwalk?

Of course, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and their 10 friends who have actually been to the moon (no, it’s not a conspiracy… Buzz punched a guy who thought it was therefore it is not). The real moonwalk was done 240,000 miles closer to home. It was right here on our planet Earth to be precise. The earliest recorded instance of the famed dance move is by Cab Calloway in 1932. They called it “The Buzz” 37 years before Buzz did his moonwalk. It was performed by many throughout the years by such stars as Judy Garland, Dick Van Dyke, and James Brown. It gained it’s infamy when Michael Jackson performed it during his televised event, Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever where it became his signature move. It’s a move in which the dancer moves backwards but appears to be walking forward. There are Youtube videos that teach you how to do it.

2. What are tides?

They’re not the orange jugs of laundry soap. They’re not the pods that you need to keep locked and stored out of reach of kids who think the colorful bauble of soap might be candy. The Earth’s tides have to do with water, but not the cold water washing machine cycle. The tides are the ebb and flow, the movement of the water onto and away from the shoreline. Like that morning we went to the beach and the water was really close to us, but after lunch it was far away from our blanket and umbrella. We can thank the moon for that. The moon’s gravity pulls at the oceans of the Earth like little brothers pull big sister’s hair.

The moon’s gravity pulls at the Earth and the oceans’ water is able to move significantly as result. The water is pulled toward the moon. The gravity of the moon also makes the Earth wobble just a bit. Imagine the water moving UP the side of a glass that you are moving in a circle on the kitchen table. That up water in the glass would correlate with high tide on the Earth. As the moon orbits the Earth the oceans facing the sun are also pulled toward it. Simultaneously, the pull of the moon and slosh created by the wobble are on opposite sides of the Earth. As the Earth rotates through those two points the tides rise and fall.

3. Do we get earthquakes here?

Nope. Thankfully. Mexico is still cleaning up their mess. I’m not sure Haiti and Nepal have fully recovered, either. You see, here in Atlantic Canada we don’t live near any fault lines. Fault lines are where techtonic plates of different continental masses rub together. We are on that little land mass just above the i in Carribbean. A couple years ago a small quake was detected about 400 miles off shore of Newfoundland. We didn’t feel a thing and I never heard about any tidal surges because of it. Looking at the fault lines it’s not hard to imagine why New Zealand and California, among other places that lie on the fault lines, are always shaken (and not stirred).

4. Why do some lights get hot and others don’t?

Have you ever touched an incandescent bulb after it has been on for a bit? It’s a lesson you learn real quick. If you’re a man you’re going to try to be tough through the pain so you can get that bulb changed. If you’re a woman you’ll have the sense to use oven mitts or just wait for it to cool off. In an incandescent bulb, a filament acts as a resistor and heats up. It gets to about 4,600 degrees Farenheit to be exact. For comparison, lava is only 2,200 degrees F. This high heat creates some visible light. 90% of an incandescent bulb is heat and 5% is infered light. The other 5% is visible light. I highly suggest you switch to LED lights. Less electricity, less heat, same amount of light.